There are a lot of Stranger Things characters who have escaped certain death throughout the show's first four seasons, but other characters weren't so lucky. Now, the Duffer brothers are sharing a little more information about those characters and how they were always destined to die.
In a recent interview with TIME, Matt and Ross Duffer revealed that they knew four Stranger Things characters who would die in the series, basically, from the moment they started writing those characters.
Those four characters are: Barb Holland (Shannon Purser), Bob Newby (Sean Astin), Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), and Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn).
As you can see, there's basically been one major character death in every season of the series. Barb was killed at the end of the second episode of Stranger Things. Bob died at the end of season 2, followed by Billy at the end of season 3 and Eddie at the end of season 4.
Barb and Bob were actually supposed to die much sooner in Stranger Things
Two of those characters actually stuck around longer than they were meant to, according to the Duffers. Those characters were Barb and Bob.
"Barb died in the pilot script we sold to Netflix," Ross said. "She died in that script, so we ended up keeping her in a full other episode."
Barb's death is one of the most interesting in the series because of the outpouring of support for her character. Basically, the whole town, outside of Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and, I guess, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), didn't even believe anything was wrong with Barb.
Barb only made it to the second episode, but she left a huge mark on this series that has completely shaped the future of Stranger Things.
Bob, on the other hand, lasted a little longer in Stranger Things season 2, but he was still supposed to die a lot earlier. The Duffers have talked about Bob's death before, but it's been so long since that happened. I don't know if they have revealed that he was originally supposed to be killed by Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) in the third episode of season 2.
Matt revealed that they changed Bob's character because they loved Astin so much. They tried to make the character more "endearing," which made him more of a focal point and fan-favorite of the season, but the Duffers always knew what they needed to do.
"Didn't die in episode 3 like he was supposed to, didn't die in episode 4," Matt said. "Then, finally, we made it all the way to episode 8, and we said at that point, 'if we're going to do it, we have to do it.' But, it was hard writing his death scene to be honest, because it was saying goodbye to this character we really enjoyed writing but mostly saying goodbye to Sean [Astin], who is such a great guy."
Killing off Billy and Eddie was necessary for other characters' story arcs
Another part of the interview that I found fascinating was listening to the Duffers describe Billy and Eddie, and how important Montgomery and Quinn were to those roles.
We've heard the Duffers talk about Montgomery's commitment to building Billy's backstory and not just being a villain to be a villain, but they admitted they knew Billy was going to be a two-season arc with his death coming at the hands of the Mind Flayer as he saves Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and the others.
"We knew that he (Billy) was going to die, from the moment we introduced him, at the end of season 3," Matt said. "We knew we were going to build a possession storyline around him. The idea of exploring Max's reaction to that came as we were working on season 4. It wasn't always some sort of grand plan, but we liked the idea of exploring what her reaction to something like that would be, to someone who was very much a part of her life but someone who she had an extremely complicated, messy relationship with."
Although he was always one of the good guys, Eddie died in a very similar way in season 4. After a life of running from the hardships he's faced and standing alone, Eddie chooses to sacrifice himself in the Upside Down for his friends to have a chance to beat Vecna and for the town that turned its back on him.
"Eddie was always destined to die," Matt said. "He always had hat arc built for him. Once we got to that point, it was really hard. It was similar to Sean Astin where we weren't sure we wanted to do it because it meant saying goodbye to Eddie and Joe. But, it was the right thing for Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and his arc. Very much in the same way that Billy died and it affected Max, this is going to have a major impact on Dustin."
How much of an impact, we'll find out in Stranger Things 5. I'm sure there will probably be a few more characters to add to this list when it's all said and done, but I really hope not. We know one character is already slated for a much bigger role this season.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things 5 will be released in Vol. 1 on Wednesday, Nov. 26. The next batch of episodes (Vol. 2) will be released on Netflix on Thursday, Dec. 25, and that's Christmas Day. Then, the season and series will conclude with The Finale on New Year's Eve, December 31.